ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra)
The Crown Room
Crystal Bay Club
Crystal Bay, NV
17-FEB-2017

https://archive.org/details/AnimalLiberationOrchestra&tab=about

Please support Music In Schools, an organization that ALO firmly believes in, and which Tour d'Amour is all about! http://musicinschoolstoday.org/

Recorded By: RasBobre
https://www.facebook.com/rasbobrerecordings

Mic Location: Rafter Mounted 12 Feet Off Stage/12 Feet High
Gamble DCX40  > AKG C414 XL II (Carioid 20cm) >  SBD Matrix > Zoom Handy H6 > Audacity

FOH: Michael Pollock

**24/96, not intended for CD Burning**

* A Devildogs Production Show *

For upcoming shows at the Crystal Bay Club please visit Devildog Productions website, http://devildogshows.com/

About ALO:

When the Godfather of Soul–a.k.a. James Brown–gives you advice about your musical career, it’s wise to pay attention. Luckily, Saratoga High School graduates Zach Gill, Steve Adams and Dan Lebowitz did just that. As a result, the three have enjoyed the kind of success few performers can imagine. Last week, the trio–accompanied by band-mate Dave Brogan–staged a triumphant return to their hometown, where their band ALO (formerly Animal Liberation Orchestra) opened for rockers Toad the Wet Sprocket at The Mountain Winery. The acclaim heaped upon the members of the SHS class of 1993 undoubtedly would have made the Godfather proud.

In their high school days, Lebowitz, Adams and Gill were collectively known as LAG. But there was nothing lagging about their musical abilities: The three, who had met in junior high, were members of the jazz band, jazz choir, concert choir and marching band. “I’m sure if we hadn’t had all of that awesome music available to us when we were at Saratoga High School, our lives would not have been the same,” Lebowitz said. “There was one semester when I took four music classes at once.”

By the time the future ALO (then known as Django) arrived on the high school campus, they were already veteran performers. Adams remembers attending a talent show as a seventh-grader and seeing Gill and another friend playing a rock ‘n’ roll song. “I thought, ‘Bands have bass players. I should get a bass guitar and ask if I could join them.’ So I went to Oak Street Music downtown and bought one, and basically invited myself into their band.”

Soon the budding rockers were playing middle school dances, the annual Saratoga Elementary School picnic and the Saratoga Fun Run. It helped that all three had parents who encouraged their sons’ talents. Lebowitz’s parents brought their son and Adams along to concerts with the Rolling Stones and other artists. Gill, whose grandmother and grandfather were a church organist and rock singer, respectively, said his parents were particularly accommodating of his burgeoning–and often noisy–passion.

“They really put up with a lot of it, and were very supportive of what we were doing,” Gill said. “If I said, ‘We need a new P.A. system,’ they’d make it happen for us.”

Before the band had their drivers’ licenses, they soaked up the local music scene in the best way they could at places like the former Lonnie’s barbecue joint on Big Basin Way. “We’d order a cup of soup and sit there all night long and watch the musicians,” Lebowitz said, laughing. “That was one of our first experiences seeing music being performed live.”

During their stint at SHS–which five years earlier had graduated members of dada, one of ALO’s favorite bands–Gill and Adams joined the Saratoga Youth Commission. The pair launched an annual music festival in Wildwood Park, and kept it going for several years. “It was all high school bands,” Adams recalled. “We got to network with older bands, and we hired them as judges. Zach and I were stoked that we managed to pull it off, getting sponsors and the whole thing.”

LAG/Django also managed to pull off a novel publicity stunt: Cruising the parking lot of the old Taco Bravo (now the site of the Saratoga-Sunnyvale on-ramp to Highway 85), they played live through the open doors and windows of a Chevy van owned by Rob Cancilleri, whose parents were the proprietors of Saratoga Plaza Bakery. Later, they pressed 300 copies of a demo CD and brought them to school. “We sold out in a week. That really encouraged us to keep going with the music,” Adams said.

All three of the former Saratogans say one their strongest influences came courtesy of former SHS choral director Eileen Doctorow, now a college counselor with the Los Angeles Unified School District. “She developed a pretty serious program there, and you always wanted to gain her respect somehow,” said Gill. Adds Adams, “We were just talking about her the other day, and what an impact she’d made on all of us. She’d try to get us to sing harmonies, and really made us excited about music. She loved the fact that she could work with us in a more serious context, since we were all so into it.”

That passion was to continue through the bands’ years at UC-Santa Barbara, where all enrolled in virtually every music course available. The band’s name also was transformed from Django to Animal Liberation Orchestra. Adams described the moniker as a reaction to the heavyweight music studies consuming his friends and him at UCSB. “We were in the jazz ensemble, and the Middle Eastern ensemble and all sorts of academic orchestras. So we wanted something lighthearted and fun, which would encourage people to ‘liberate their inner animal,’ and sing, dance, and be part of the band.”

During one summer off from classes–by then having met and hired fellow student Brogan as their drummer–the bandmates traveled to Augusta, Ga., to house-sit for a friend who was touring as a back-up singer for James Brown. Throughout the South, ALO found audiences eager for their music. But it was subsequent meetings and conversations with Brown that were to shape their destinies.

“We got to hang out with him. He had a local radio station and would play our albums and call us for interviews,” Lebowitz said. “One time he said, ‘Hey, make music No. 2 in your life; that’s what I did. If you make it No. 1 before you’re ready, you’ll take all the fun out of it.’ We thought those were pretty wise words, and interpreted them as saying we should stay in school. I’m really glad we did that, because we had more time to figure out what we wanted to do. I feel so honored for the time we got to spend with him.”

At UCSB the band also met and connected with Jack Johnson, a native of Hawaii who would go on to international fame with his blend of acoustic, folk, surf-rock and soft-rock genres. In later years, Johnson signed ALO to his record label. They have since recorded three CDs. Aided by a robust, ongoing touring schedule of the U.S. and Europe, as well as frequent airplay by San Francisco radio station KFOG, which frequently invites ALO for live concert broadcasts and has featured the band on a number of compilation CDs, ALO has gained a devoted coterie of fans.

Their numerous side projects, such as Gill’s contributions to the score of the “Curious George” film, and his collaboration with Aimee Mann and Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison on a composition for a Paramount Pictures documentary, have cemented their position as serious music professionals. Yet audiences seem powerless to resist their breezy, dance-perfect melodies and rhythms. In a recent review, the San Jose Mercury stated that ALO’s “unique mixture of superb song crafting, instrumental prowess, infectious energy and dance floor demolition has earned the jam band a fanatic following.”

Though ALO now enjoys rock-star status, they’ve never forgotten the importance of those early days in music classes and ensembles. Given the statewide budget trimming that has decimated school music programs, ALO makes it a point to give back to educators and students. Each year they stage the “Tour d’Amour,” playing concerts in several cities and donating a portion of the proceeds to Music in Schools Today, a nonprofit group that helps fund Bay Area music programs.

Gill, who has been a music teacher, says the cause is important for all members of ALO. “Every one of us came through public school music programs, and we know how integral that was for all of us. It’s a natural fit for us to support something like this,” he noted.

Somewhere, the Godfather of Soul is giving that a big “amen. (The Mercury News, San Jose) ALO is:

Steve Adams - bass, vocals
David Brogan - drums, vocals
Zach Gill - keys, uke, vocals
Dan Lebowitz - guitar, vocals

Please support musicians that are open to having their live shows recorded and shared by attending their performances and purchasing officially released recordings and other merchandise.

https://www.facebook.com/animalliberationorchestra/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_Orchestra
https://twitter.com/alomusic

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